Cover image for Ashkelon 9: The Hellenistic Period By Kathleen J. Birney

Ashkelon 9

The Hellenistic Period

Kathleen J. Birney

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$139.95 | Hardcover Edition
ISBN: 978-1-64602-216-8

568 pages
8.5" × 11"
495 color/124 b&w illustrations
2022
Distributed by Penn State University Press for Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

Final Reports of The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon

Ashkelon 9

The Hellenistic Period

Kathleen J. Birney

This ninth archaeological report of the Leon Levy Expedition presents the material remains of Ashkelon’s Hellenistic-period occupation. Drawing together contributions from a range of specialists, it adduces the evidence from Ashkelon’s material record to address larger economic, cultural, and political questions of the Hellenistic era.

 

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This ninth archaeological report of the Leon Levy Expedition presents the material remains of Ashkelon’s Hellenistic-period occupation. Drawing together contributions from a range of specialists, it adduces the evidence from Ashkelon’s material record to address larger economic, cultural, and political questions of the Hellenistic era.

From dense urban neighborhoods to monumental public spaces, this volume presents a survey of the city’s architecture and a detailed analysis of its ceramic assemblage alongside specialist studies of coins, botanical and faunal remains, and small finds. It provides a reconstruction of Ashkelon’s historical arc and economic networks and explores the material evidence for cultural and political influence throughout the Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and early Roman empires. In so doing, it explores Ashkelon’s transition from being a Phoenician city under the Persians to a nominally Greek city under the Ptolemies or Seleucids.

Featuring more than twenty-six chapters written by experts in the field and a wealth of detailed color and black-and-white illustrations, Ashkelon 9 is an essential contribution to the study of Hellenistic archaeology in Israel. It will be a valuable resource for archaeologists, biblical scholars, and Hellenists specializing in this period both in Israel and in the broader Mediterranean.

In addition to the author, the contributors to this volume are Donald Ariel, Deirdre N. Fulton, Omri Lernau, John M. Marston, and Anastasia Shapiro.

Kathleen J. Birney is Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Archaeology at Wesleyan University. In addition to being Assistant Director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, she is also Head of Persian and Hellenistic Research at the excavations at Tel Shimron, Israel and has published numerous reports and articles on material from mainland Greece, Crete, Turkey, Syria, and Israel.